Dr. Jackson on a Framework for Protest & Spirituality

Beyond the issue of theology, there is the more subtle and complicated matter of the relationship between protest and resistance, on the one hand, and spirituality, personal piety, and moral rectitude, on the other. Here, however, we confront again the problem of a possible mismatch between an imported tradition and an indigenous heritage. The most commonly recognized regime of pietism and spirituality among Muslims is that of Sufism. Sufism includes, however, at least two distinct aspects: (1) a focus on matters of personal piety and moral refinement (tahdhib al-nafs, tahdhib al-akhlaq, tazkiyat al-nafs); and (2) a concern with mysticism, including the supernatural extraction of service from nature and achieving mystical union with the Divine (fana’, hulul, wahdat al-wujud). In terms of substance, the personal piety side of Sufism is a veritable gold mine for Blackamericans, especially in its psychology of rectitude. Its institutional structure, however, tends towards a highly stratified authoritarianism, including a master-disciple relationship that borders at times on the cultic. Moreover, in its American manifestation, organized Sufis, has most often taken the form of a quetistic critique of and alternative to what are cast as the more politicized or even radical expressions of Islam. As for the mystical dimension of Sufism, it tends to ground itself in either the Neoplatonic tradition of Late Antiquity or the superstitious traditions of sub-Saharan Africa, neither of which are easily reconciled with the deeply protestant, lay predisposition of the masses of Blackamerican Muslims, not to mention the protest sentiment of Black Religion.

If Blackamerican Sunni Islam is to subvert false mysterium tremendum and the “second creation” without degenerating into just another secular ideology or cultural performance, it will have to ground its protest mission in articulations of the religion that show such a mission to be consistent with the pursuit of divine pleasure. This will require certain adjustments and modifications to the theological and spiritualist traditions handed down from the Sunni past. And issues of personal piety and spiritual development will have to assume their proper place in the everyday lives of Blackamerican Muslims. Over the remainder of this chapter, I shall attempt to lay out a framework within which such a reconciliation might be effected. While I am confident that my views are entirely validatable from the perspective of Muslim scripture and Tradition, it is perhaps too early in the history of American Islam to expect anything approaching consensus. As such, my statements might be taken as more of a beginning than the end of a process that I hope will be long and fruitful.

-pg. 175-6 of Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection

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